London Review Bookshop Podcast

In Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever (Bloomsbury) Lamorna Ash, author of the coming-of-age memoir cum anthropological study of the Cornish fishing industry Dark, Salt, Clear, visits Evangelical youth festivals, Quaker meetings, a silent Jesuit retreat along the Welsh coastline and a monastic community in the Inner Hebrides to investigate, through interviews and personal reflections, what drives young people in the twenty-first century to embrace Christianity. Poet Seán Hewitt writes ‘Humane, curious and unexpectedly moving, Lamorna Ash’s book is as much an account of the human condition as it is an investigation of faith. Quietly radical in its empathy, this is a book I have waited years and years to read, without even knowing it.’ Lamorna Ash was in conversation with James Butler, contributing editor at the London Review of Books.

In On Breathing (Peninsula Press) Jamieson Webster, a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York and part-time faculty member at The New School for Social Research, draws on psychoanalytic theory to reflect on her own experiences as an asthmatic teenager, a deep-sea diver, a palliative psychologist during covid and a new mother to explore how the experience of air and breathing serves to undermine the pervasive myth of the individual, and to underline how dependent we are on invisible systems, and on each other. In this recording, Webster is breathing the same air as Katherine Angel, author of Unmastered, Daddy Issues and Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again.

Laleh Khalili, Professor of Gulf Studies at the University of Exeter, looks behind the glossy surface promises of frictionless trade and limitless growth to uncover the hidden stories behind late capitalism, from seafarers abandoned on debt-ridden container ships to the nefarious reach of consultancy firms and the cronyism that drives record-breaking profits. Piercing, wry and constantly revealing, Extractive Capitalism (Profile) brings vividly to light the dark truths behind the world's most voracious industries. Professor Khalili was joined in conversation about her work by lecturer, commentator and broadcaster David Wearing, whose AngloArabia: Why Gulf Wealth Matters to Britain (Polity) was published in 2018. More from the Bookshop: Discover our author of the month, book of the week and more: ⁠https://lrb.me/bkshppod⁠ From the LRB: Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subsbkshppod Close Readings podcast: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/crbkshppod LRB Audiobooks: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksbkshppod Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/storebkshppod Get in touch: [email protected]

In the first of a new series from Old Street in which historian focus on a single moment of history, pre-eminent English-language expert on the Soviet Union Sheila Fitzpatrick gives a detailed and darkly humorous account of the day in 1953 on which Stalin died, an event for which, despite its inevitability, both Russia and the wider world were almost completely unprepared. Fitzpatrick discussed The Death of Stalin with Owen Hatherley (Trans-Europe Express, The Alienation Effect).

Pear Trees (Hazel Press) is a short story by Laura Beatty, the Ondaatje Prize-shortlisted novelist and biographer. Set in an Albanian mountain village, Pear Trees blends folklore and ecology to pose the largest of questions about our relationship with the living world. Beatty was joined in conversation by potter and author Edmund de Waal, whose most recent books include Letters to Camondo (Chatto) and Perdendosi (Hazel Press). More from the Bookshop: Discover our author of the month, book of the week and more: ⁠https://lrb.me/bkshppod⁠ From the LRB: Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subsbkshppod Close Readings podcast: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/crbkshppod LRB Audiobooks: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksbkshppod Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/storebkshppod Get in touch: [email protected]